The Isis Covenant

I

The words emerged babbled and almost formless, the voice barely a whisper clinging to the outer edge of existence, like its owner, the frail, silver-haired patient lying on the hospital bed. Seated beside the bed, the tall blond man hit the rewind button on a digital recorder and replayed the two sentences for the fourth time.

It had been like this from the start: tiny fragments of stories in half a dozen different languages, each providing a frustrating glimpse of a larger whole. Tantalizing, but ultimately infuriating. Names whose identity had only become clear from the history books. The doctors called it multiple personality disorder and said it wasn’t unusual for a sufferer to suddenly start talking in foreign languages, even those they could never have learned. They didn’t have an explanation for it, but it happened. Only the blond man knew that something set this case apart. That was why he’d begun recording the mad ramblings of a brain on the point of self-destruct.

The room in the private hospital was large and airy, but for a moment he found it difficult to breathe. He rose from the cushioned plastic seat and opened the window, allowing in a gust of petroleum-scented air from the constant traffic he could hear rushing along Euston Road a few hundred yards away. A combination of words in the excerpt stirred a memory and he searched the machine’s database for a previous recording, his subconscious automatically monitoring the shrill, annoying rush of digitized information for the section he was listening for. ‘… the caves for ever.’

It was one of the longer passages and he frowned as he concentrated on the words.

Paul Dornberger listened without emotion to the tale of massacre. More important than the content was the fact that the words were spoken in an archaic, colloquial Latin his researches had confirmed was probably used in Rome around the time of Christ’s death. He could read Latin and Greek as well as he could read English, but it had taken several weeks to associate the recording with the language he had read and heard.

The thin figure on the bed groaned, as if he could sense the febrile electricity in the air. Dornberger studied him, aware that he felt none of the affection or sympathy that would be normal in a son.

Queen Dido’s treasury.

The three words sent a thrill of almost childlike excitement through him. They conjured up a picture-book image of gold and jewels lying in great heaps; a literal king’s ransom. Yet, that was the least of it. What truly mattered was that the words appeared to confirm something beyond understanding and that should rightly have been beyond belief. Something that the old man had revealed during one of the more lucid periods of his relentless downward spiral. Dornberger took a deep breath and walked to the large safe bolted to the floor beside the bed. It was an expensive safe, the most secure his employer’s money would buy. He studied it for a moment. The combination of keys and punched numbers were etched on his brain, but he ran each stage through his mind before performing it, because he was a careful man and it was his habit. With a faint click, the heavy steel door opened to reveal a substantial, black velvet bag of a kind sometimes used to protect valuable musical instruments.

He hesitated before picking it up. If he was honest, what was inside made him nervous in a way very few things did. He placed the bag on to the bed and untied the silken strings that closed the neck. No need to rush. The door was locked and, in any case, no doctor or nurse would dare barge into the room without knocking. The material was soft between his fingers as he drew the neck apart, allowing him to see the buttery glint of yellow metal inside. His heart fluttered a little as he reached in to draw the contents clear of the velvet cloth.

This was the physical manifestation of the words on the recorder: what made the impossible possible. The object in his hands stood eighteen inches tall and consisted of a diadem of gold topped by twin horns of the same precious metal, which curved upwards and out, so that the tips ended nine inches apart. Between the horns, close to the base and at the narrowest point, were fixed four clasps in a configuration that would hold an object about the size of a goose’s egg. The band of the diadem had been worked with symbols that were recognizably Pharaonic, similar to those on artefacts he’d seen in the Egyptian section of the British Museum. In the centre, between the base of the horns, was carved a single staring eye. Some impulse made him raise the crown and place it on his head. At first the metal was cold against his forehead, but it quickly warmed to the temperature of his body. Blood thundered in his ears, his vision became blurred and for a fleeting moment he truly believed. But the sensation quickly passed and he saw himself reflected in the window: the sharp suit and the ridiculous headdress. A heavy-jawed, unsmiling young man with short blond hair and narrow, pale eyes that people found difficult to read. With a snort of disgust he removed the crown and carried it to where Max Dornberger lay in the bed.

‘Well, old man, what if I actually believed your madness? Even if it does exist, how will I find it?’

There was no answer, and he had expected none.

He replaced the crown with as much care as he’d removed it and returned the bag to the safe, punching random numbers into the keypad to engage the lock. When he was satisfied, he leaned over the bed and kissed his father’s forehead. If he had seen himself he would have been surprised at the affection the gesture displayed. He picked up the recorder from the top of the safe and stared at it for a few moments, as if he expected it to tell him its secrets, but it was as silent as the old man.

Shaking his head at his own foolishness, he reached for the door handle.

The word was like a whisper on the wind.

‘What?’ he demanded, but he knew what he’d heard.

Hartmann.